Tuesday, May 23, 2006

Stress Off The Charts

I've seen this test of your stress level before, and I was actually rather curious (and also a bit scared) to find out what my score was. I was pretty sure it would be over 200, but I was amazed that it was 429, and that's just what's happened in the last year. If I put in two years' worth of events I'm up to 526. I get a message that says "this score indicates a major life crisis and is highly predictive (80%) of serious physical illness within the next 2 years."

Trouble is, if I add a serious physical illness to the laundry list of things that have already gone wrong in the last year or so, my score isn't exactly going to go down.

I wonder what counts as a "serious physical illness." I already have bunions in both my feet, but I can't get surgery right now because I'd have to be off my feet for six weeks. You can't be six weeks out of commission when you have tiny, rambunctious kids. That would be even worse than the intermittent pain from the bunions, so I'll have to postpone surgery for a couple of years until Knuckles and Bagel are old enough. If I have a "serious physical illness" I'm just going to have to die of it, because I don't think I can take on anything else right now.

I'm going to leave the computer now; the pain in my hip is getting to me. My headache is thankfully somewhat better; earlier today it was pounding so bad that even on the max dose of ibuprofen, I was still seeing funny.